Vitae

Contact Information

2215 Snedecor Hall, Department of Statistics, Iowa State University, Ames, 50011, IA
Email: xie@yihui.name; Tel: (+1) 515-203-2465 Homepage: http://yihui.name

Research Interest

Statistical computing and graphics / data visualization

Education Background

  • 2009 ~ Now, PhD student in the Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
  • 2006 ~ 2009, Master of statistics, School of Statistics, Renmin University of China
  • 2002 ~ 2006, Bachelor of Economics, School of Statistics, Renmin University of China

Honors & Awards

  • Honorable Mention Prize, Applications of R in Business Competition, 2012
  • Vince Sposito Statistical Computing Award, 2011 (Department of Statistics, Iowa State University)
  • John M. Chambers Statistical Software Award, 2009 (for the R package “animation“)
  • Excellent graduate scholarship, Renmin University of China, 2007
  • Certificate of Mathematical Contest in Modelling (America)Successful Participant, Mathematical Contest in Modeling (America), 2006 (paper & certificate)
  • Excellent graduate of Renmin University of China, 2006
  • “Excellent Worker in Student Media” of Renmin University of China, 2006 (for hosting the website of statistics discussions in http://cos.name)
  • Scholarship for outstanding learning, Renmin University of China, 2005

Publications

In Chinese

  1. Yanyun Zhao, Nailin Feng, Yuncheng Zhao, Yihui Xie, Ning Xiao, 2008, Research on the National Quality Competitiveness of China, Statistical Research, 25(3), 12-19
  2. Yihui Xie, 2008. On the Applications of Statistical Graphics in Data Analysis, Statistical Review, Bo Zhang (ed)
  3. Yihui Xie, 2008. Bootstrap Methods: Developments and Frontiers, Statistics & Information Forum, 89, 90-96.
  4. Yihui Xie, 2007. The Application of the Classification and Regression Tree Based on the Package rpart in R, Statistics & Information Forum, 86, 67-70.
  5. Yihui Xie, 2007. Series in International Competitiveness: How Weak is the Financial System of China?, China Statistics, 7, 35.
  6. Yanyun Zhao, Yihui Xie, 2006. Unbalanced growth in top 100 industrial enterprises in China: market expanding outgoes business managing, Talents, 9, 84.
  7. Yanyun Zhao, Yihui Xie, 2005. Who is the champion of growth among top 1000 industrial enterprises in China: analysis on the capability of market expanding and aggregate efficiency, Talents, 9, 72-73.

In English

  1. Yihui Xie, 201?, animation: An R Package for Creating Animations and Demonstrating Statistical Methods, Journal of Statistical Software (under review)
  2. Yihui Xie and Xiaoyue Cheng, 2008. animation: A Package for Statistical Animations, R News, 8(2). URL: http://www.r-project.org/doc/Rnews/Rnews_2008-1.pdf
  3. Yihui Xie, 2007. Visualization of Data and Statistical Models Using R, Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Australia-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA): Econometric Modeling and Policy in Trade, Investment and Economic Integration (paper)

Besides, I published several articles in the “Capital of Statistics” in Chinese.

Professional Experience

Web Construction and Management

Sept 2003 – Now

I’ve made and been maintaining web pages for:

  • The School of Statistics, Renmin University of China (Sept 2003 – Jun 2009)
  • The Center for Applied Statistics, Renmin University of China (Apr 2004 – Jun 2009)
  • The Center for Risk Management and Actuarial Studies (Jun 2004 – Apr 2006); Data Mining Center of Renmin University of China (Jul 2004 – Apr 2006), etc
  • The “Great Expectation Society”, a student society in Renmin University (Mar 2005 – Jul 2006)

I’ve built and been hosting this web forum:

I’ve been working in these web studios:

  • The English web studio of Renmin University of China (for the construction of English website of the university) (Sept 2006 – Jun 2009)
  • The web club of the School of Statistics (as the founder & leader) (Apr 2006 – 2008)

My own projects:

Conferences Organization

Feb 2005 – Now

I organized

  • the 1st Chinese R conference (in Beijing), Dec 13~14, 2008

and I helped organize these conferences:

  • the 3rd Chinese R conference (Beijing), Jun 12~13, 2010
  • the 2nd Chinese R conference (Beijing & Shanghai), December 2009
  • Second Conference on Micro Evidence on Innovation in Developing Economies, April 22 ~ 23, 2008 (an international conference; I was also the Chair for the last session on April 22)
  • 2nd Conference on Australia-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA): Econometric Modeling and Policy in Trade, Investment and Economic Integration, April 17th ~ 18th, 2006
  • 15th International Conference on Input-Output Techniques, June 27th ~ July 1st, 2005
  • Data Mining and Business Intelligence Conference 2006
  • International Statistics Forum 2006

Statistical Consulting

May 2005 – Now

I offer statistical consulting by email and I have been answering questions in the “Capital of Statistics” almost every day. I’m happy to see these topics:

  • data analysis and visualization
  • theoretical problems without measure theory
  • linear models, generalized linear models and nonlinear models
  • R packages that I maintain (other questions on R should go to R-help or StackOverflow)
  • statistics in other disciplines (e.g. biology) in which I can also learn something from you
  • real world data mining
  • simulation
  • teaching

I will ignore any questions on Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and factor analysis, as I do not believe their usefulness at all. I know little about time series and do not like econometrics.

Other Work Experience

Sep 2004 – present

Duties in Associations & Centers:

  • Column editor of the ICSA bulletin for its R column (2012)
  • Webmaster of the Center for Applied Statistics, Renmin University of China (2004 – 2009)
  • Vice-chairman of the “Great Expectation Society” (a student association, Apr 2005 – Jul 2006)

Projects Participated:

  • Translation of “R for beginners” (by Emmanuel Paradis) (Co-operated with some colleagues to finish the translation) (Nov 2005 – Feb 2006);
  • Performance Evaluation of Taxation Management of the China Customs (designed several R programs for sampling databases using R) (Sept 2006 – Jun 2009);
  • Important Projects in Social Science of the Ministry of Education: Research on the Industry Competitiveness of China (Apr 2007 – May 2007);
  • A research project on statistical quality control co-operated with China National Research Institute of Food and Fermentation Industries, National Standardization Centre of Food & Fermentation Industry, P.R.C.; R (D)COM was used in developing programs (May 2007 – Jun 2009)
  • Cooperative project with the Office of 1% Population Sampling Survey of the State Department: Research on the National Population Competitiveness of China (Jun 2007 – Nov 2007, report finished)

Presentations & Lectures

  • Yihui Xie, 2011, How I See Bootstrap, Tests and KDE, Stat546 presentation at ISU (slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2011, An Introduction to R, tutorial workshops in the Econ department of ISU (slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2011, cranvas: Interactive Statistical Graphics in R via Qt, AT&T Research Labs, New Jersey (slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2011, Interactive Parallel Coordinates Plot Based on Qt, Joint Statistical Meetings at Miami Beach, Florida (slides; R code)
  • Yihui Xie, 2011, New Features and Enhancements of the animation Package, ISU Graphics Working Group (slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2010, LaTeX and Sweave without Tears, ISU Graphics Working Group (slides; demo; LyX source of slides; configuration script)
  • Yihui Xie, 2010, Creating Animations with R, the useR! 2010 conference at NIST, Gaithersburg, MD (slides; R code)
  • Yihui Xie, 2010, Creating GUI with the gWidgets package, the 3rd Chinese R conference, Beijing (slides in Chinese; R code)
  • Yihui Xie, 2010, Modern Statistical Graphics, tutorial lecture on the 3rd Chinese R conference, Beijing (slides in Chinese)
  • Yihui Xie, 2009, Creating R Packages, Working Group in Statistical Computing and Computationally-intensive Statistical Methods, Department of Statistics, ISU (slides; C code)
  • Yihui Xie, 2009, R in Stat500: Demonstration, Computing, and Graphics (with An Introduction to the R Package ISU.Stat500), RTG Seminar, Department of Statistics, ISU (slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2009, Turning Statistical Ideas into Animations, VIGRE Graphics Seminar, Department of Statistics, ISU (slides; R code and graphs)
  • Yihui Xie, 2009, Reproducible Research and An Introduction to LaTeX, R and Sweave, a report for PhD students in the School of Statistics, RUC (slides in Chinese)
  • Yihui Xie, 2008, (1) The History of R Language and Current Developments (slides) (2) animation: An R Package for Statistical Animations with Applications in Teaching and Data Analysis (slides) (3) Explore Irregular Data with R (slides, R code), the 1st Chinese R Conference, Beijing, 2008.12.13~14 (introduction to the conference, R code)
  • Yihui Xie, 2008, Tutorial Lectures on R Basics, a four-day tutorial lecture series given at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences (slides in Chinese: 1, 2, 3, 4; and a document for the lectures)
  • Yihui Xie, 2008, See? (escaping the math world via animations…), a talk in the School of Statistics, Renmin University of China (slides; Flash demos)
  • Yihui Xie, 2008, Statistical Animations Using R, useR! 2008 in Dortmund (abstract; slides; demos; slides in PDF)
  • Yihui Xie, 2008, Computer Animations for Demonstrating Statistical Procedures: Methods and Implementations, a talk at the workshop “Statistical Graphics: Data and Information Visualization in Today’s Multimedia Society (Data Viz VI)” in Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany (slides; demos and other materials)
  • Yihui Xie, 2008, The Influence of Population Quality Competitiveness to Regional Innovation: the China Case, a presentation at the 2nd MEIDE conference (slides; demos and graphs)
  • Yihui Xie, 2008, A Training Course on EViews and Examples in Macroeconomic Statistics, a lecture in the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of People’s Republic of China (slides in Chinese)
  • Yihui Xie, 2007, Animation in Statistics: Dynamic Graphics for Statistical Models and Practical Applications, an invited talk in the 2nd postgraduate forum on statistics for universities in Beijing (slides; demos for animations)
  • Yihui Xie, 2007, Classification Tree Ensembles with Applications to the Prognostic Analysis of Cerebral Infarction, a report in “The Seminar for the Statistical Methods in Clinical Research” held in Renmin University of China (slides in Chinese ; demos for some machine learning techiques)
  • Yihui Xie, 2007, Jokes in Statistics, an invited lecture in the Capital University of Economics and Business (slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2007, A Leisure Look on Some Tools for Statistics, an invited lecture in the Capital University of Economics and Business (slides in Chinese; R code)
  • Yihui Xie, 2007, Bootstrap Methods: A Review, a report in the class of “Frontiers in Statistics” (slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2007, An Introduction to Support Vector Machine and Implementation in R, an article for a presentation of the class “Data Mining and Machine Learning” (slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2007, A Framework for Statistical Programming and An Introduction to Basic Statistical Analysis Using R, a lecture given to the members of the “Capital of Statistics” (slides in Chinese)
  • Yihui Xie, 2007, A Brief Introduction to Java, a lecture in the School of Statistics (slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2007, A Guide to Stata, a lecture in People’s Bank of China (slides in Chinese)
  • Yihui Xie, 2007, Visualization of Data and Statistical Models Using R, 3rd Conference on Australia-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA): Econometric Modeling and Policy in Trade, Investment and Economic Integration (paper; slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2006, Thoughts of Statistics, an invited talk in the 1st postgraduate forum on statistics for universities in Beijing (slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2006, Typesetting and LATEX, a lecture in the School of Statistics (slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2006, Statistical Programming & R Basics, a lecture in the School of Statistics (slides)
  • Yihui Xie, 2006, An Introduction to Structural Equation Modeling, A small seminar on SEM in Renmin University (slides)
  • Yanyun Zhao, Guirong Li, Xuanxuan Chen, Yihui Xie, 2006, The Industrial Structure and Foreign Investment Introduction Policy in Shanghai and Its Adjacency, 2nd Conference on Australia-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA): Econometric Modeling and Policy in Trade, Investment and Economic Integration (slides)

Computer Skills

I’m good at computer tools for building web pages and statistical modeling, programming & computation

  • Statistical Packages: R, OpenBUGS (S-Plus, SPSS, Eviews, SAS, MatLab, STATA, AMOS and LISREL)
  • Languages: R, Visual Basic (also VBA & VBScript), HTML, ASP (years ago), PHP, SQL, JavaScript, a little knowledge about Python, C and Java
  • Applications: LATEX, databases (MS Access, MySQL), SVN and GIT
  • Operating Systems: 90% GNU Linux (Ubuntu); 10% Windows

I’ve never participated in any exams such as Nationwide Computer Level Test, but I have always been repairing PCs for those who have passed these exams and solving problems in their programming. Besides, I like to improve the efficiency of my work with the aid of programming.

Software Packages

I have finished / am still writing these packages:

  • WordPress plugin “UTF-8 DB Converter” (June 2009, finished)
  • Dokuwiki plugin “animation” to insert animations into wiki pages; written in PHP and JavaScript (Jun 2008, finished)
  • R package “animation” which has provided several animation demonstrations for statistical theories and data analysis; published in CRAN and being updated (Nov 2007 – now)
  • R package knitr as an alternative to Sweave
  • R packages formatR, Rd2roxygen, R2SWF, MSG, iBUGS, fun, …
  • R package cranvas as the next generation of GGobi
Posted by Yihui Xie at 2:11 pm
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